A man of firsts

By Dave ClarkeFor the Star Courier

Tuesday

Feb 27, 2018 at 8:36 PM

Kewanee’s Bailey toget downtown mural

KEWANEE — Show of hands. How many people reading this story have ever heard of Walter T. Bailey? Thought so. That may change if the latest project of Joy Hernandez-Butler succeeds.Hernandez-Butler, a Kewanee native now living in Indianapolis, is raising funds for an independent mural which hopefully will be drawn this summer on the south wall of the B&B Printing building in the 400 block of South Main Street, honoring an important figure in African-American history who was born here in 1882. Bailey is the first African American to graduate from the University of Illinois School of Architecture, the first African American to be registered as a licensed architect in Illinois, an associate of Booker T. Washington at Alabama's Tuskegee Institute, and the man who designed the church in Montgomery, Ala., where The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and other Freedom Riders took refuge from a mob in 1958.How did Bailey, who came from a small town like Kewanee do all of that, while most African-Americans were considered second-class citizens? I first heard of Walter Bailey when I came across a story in a 1905 Star Courier announcing that Booker T. Washington had appointed him head of the architectural department at what was then called the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, the leading black college in the U.S. of the day. In February of 2006 I wrote a Black History Month column about my "find." Since then, I have written another column, the Kewanee Historical Society has developed a file on him, and now he is being researched by Hernandez-Butler, who has worked oh Walldogs murals and other creative projects in her hometown including the Prairie Chicken Festival. Bailey was born Jan. 11, 1882, the son of Emmanuel Butler, a former slave who came to Kewanee after the Civil War. He was the only black player on the Kewanee High School football team and — of significant interest — a member of the Architect's Club at KHS, where he graduated in 1900. He was apparently accepted immediately at the University of Illinois, where he was the first black student in the School of Architecture. I wondered how that could have happened in 1900 America. Two things, I believe, made it possible. The U of I had a new, forward-seeing president who was trying to broaden the university's mission, and a Kewanee architect named Henry Ecklund. A Swedish immigrant who came to Kewanee when he was 18, Ecklund also graduated from the U of I with a degree in architecture. After graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1904, Bailey worked briefly for an architectural firm in Champaign, where he married his wife, Josephine, and for Ecklund in Kewanee. It is conceivable that Ecklund discovered Bailey when he was in the KHS Architect's Club, or Bailey sought him out, but it's a safe bet that Ecklund became Bailey's mentor. The apprentice wasn't here long, and there is no way to know which, or if, there were any buildings he worked on, because a few months later, he heard from Tuskegee. Booker T. Washington was still creating a campus and had faculty design buildings. and students construct them, making the bricks themselves. Bailey's most notable contribution was White Hall, a three-story woman's dormitory which still stands. While at Tuskegee. Bailey was commissioned to build The First Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala. From 1952 to 1961, the church was led by civil rights activist Ralph Abernathy, a good friend of Martin Luther King, Jr., who preached a few blocks away, at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. During the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955–56), it was the location of mass meetings. On January 10, 1957, there was a bombing at the church and its parsonage (Abernathy's residence). On May 21, 1961, the church was a refuge for the passengers on the Freedom ride which met with violence at the Greyhound Bus Station in downtown Montgomery. The church was filled with some 1,500 worshipers and activists, including Martin Luther King, Jr., when the building was besieged by 3,000 whites who threatened to burn it. From the church, Dr. King called Attorney General Robert Kennedy for help. In 1916, Bailey moved to Memphis where his office was located on now-famous Beale Street, and where he designed many government and fraternal buildings. In 1928, he moved to Chicago, where he became the city's first black architect and designed many buildings for the near-southside neighborhood known as the "Black Metropolis," or Bronzeville, a mecca for black businesses in the 1920s and 30s. His best known work was the eight-story Knight of Pythias building which, at the time, was one of the tallest buildings in Chicago. Again, Henry Ecklund may have been part of Bailey's reason for moving to Chicago, where building was booming. Ecklund moved from Kewanee to Moline and eventually became associated with a Chicago architectural firm, and may have convinced his former apprentice to move there. Bailey's lasting legacy, however, is the First Church of Deliverance on South Wabash Ave., built in 1939. Last month, the church, from which gospel music was heard on a national radio broadcast in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, received a grant for needed renovation. According to a story last month on the Chicago Historic Preservation website, "A historic Art Moderne gem on Chicago’s South Side will be getting some much needed repairs thanks to a measure recently approved by the Commission on Landmarks. The $228,000 grant via the Adopt-a-Landmark program will fund exterior terra-cotta work on Bronzeville’s First Church of Deliverance at 4315 S. Wabash Avenue as well as restore its interior murals and doors. The streamlined building typifies Art Moderne architecture thanks to its smooth surfaces and use of glass-block windows. It was officially designated a Chicago Landmark in 1994. The structure also served an important cultural and artistic role. In 1934, First Church launched a radio broadcast that gave Rev. Clarence H. Cobbs and his 200-person choir national exposure. Music director Kenneth Morris brought in a Hammond electric organ in 1939 — a move that is credited for revolutionizing the sound of gospel music. Notable musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Dinah Washington, and “mother of gospel music” Sallie Martin have all been associated with the congregation and its broadcasts.Bailey died Feb. 21, 1941, in Chicago, of pneumonia and heart disease. Hernandez-Butler has a number of people helping her here and elsewhere with research and design, but needs about $10,000 to make the mural a reality. She has been in contact with Tuskegee University, the First Church of Deliverance, and others, telling them about the project to remember Walter T. Bailey. She has set up a GoFundMe page at: https://www.gofundme.com/walter-t-baileys-mural. Joy says large donations will go through the Walldogs nonprofit set-up. The latest on the project can be found on her Downtown Kewanee Facebook page.

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